H3 Dynamics DRONEBOX smart drone nesting extends IoT to remote areas

SINGAPORE, 17 Feb. 2016. H3 Dynamics – with facilities in Singapore, Texas, France, and South Africa – is unveiling DRONEBOX, an all-inclusive, self-powered system able to be deployed anywhere, including in remote areas where industrial assets, borders, or sensitive installations require constant monitoring.

H3 Dynamics engineers designed DRONEBOX as an evolution over today’s many unattended sensors and CCTV cameras installed in cities, borders, or large industrial estates. The system gives sensors freedom of movement using unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), commonly called drones, as their vehicles, company officials describe.

“End-users can now deploy flying sensor systems at different locations, and measure just about anything, anywhere, anytime. They offer 24/7 reactivity, providing critical information to operators - even to those located thousands of miles away,” officials add.

DRONEBOX eases the scalability challenges for UAS service operators, which use professional drones to provide customers with detailed aerial land surveys in mining or agriculture, perform infrastructure inspections, or monitor the progress of construction sites.

Some remote locations need regular or prolonged visits, which increase travel costs and risks to drone service providers. Pre-deploying DRONEBOX systems at the right locations, travel to remote areas is no longer required, charging or handling drone batteries is eliminated, and sensor data is sent through a network for easy access and processing, according to company officials.

DRONEBOXES can be installed anywhere so that drones can perform pre-programmed scheduled routines, deploy on demand, or be woken up by other drones or sensors as part of a much wider network of “things.” As a network, DRONEBOXES can increase effectiveness using collaborative technologies. Such deployments could offer first responder support in crisis events before sending humans into dangerous environments, such as nuclear power plant meltdowns, chemical spills, or natural disasters.

DRONEBOX can charge UAS batteries automatically within its shelter system. Off-grid power is provided primarily by a solar-battery installation. For more advanced requirements, system capabilities can be extended using REMOBOX, an accessory that provides more advanced communications and hosts a small back-up fuel cell system for year-long availability in mission-critical locations.

The use of mobile sensors hosted in networked DRONEBOXES could revolutionize precision agriculture, border and perimeter security, wildlife protection, critical infrastructure maintenance, telecom tower and wind turbine maintenance, oil & gas asset inspection, building and facilities management, and so on.

DRONEBOX, REMOBOX, and other products are debuting at the Singapore Air Show. Strategic partnerships, OEM relationships and distributorship discussions have started and the first versions of these products are expected to reach the market within the next 6 months.

H3 Dynamics is a complementary eco-system of hardware and software companies with locations in Singapore, Texas, France, and South Africa. The Singapore-headquartered group includes a high-performance fuel cell energy storage systems entity, an integrated robotics systems entity, as well as an entity dedicated to advanced field communications, precision tracking, and real-time analytics software.